According to this piece of the Westminster Confession of Faith, God created some people for “everlasting death,” whatever that is.I assume it means eternal torture in the fires of hell.But I suppose a generous reading could indicate these people never popping into life in the first place.Are they just a theoretical set of people who never really exist?I don’t think so.Clearly the framers of Westminster thought they were discussing some actual humans.Perhaps these individuals could even be identified….

The idea that God loves some people and hates others --- indeed, that God created some people purely for the purpose of hating them --- is so foreign to the life and teachings of Jesus as to be outside the boundaries of Christian faith.It simply raises to the level of theological dogma a particularly sinful practice of humans.As if God were nothing more than an ordinary jerk, but with infinite power.

It is people who act this way.They reject the inept and ugly while fawning over the stylish and beautiful.If you are in the latter class you generally get what you need and want.But those in the former class have to make due with want and abuse.According to double predestination (the official name for the doctrine quoted above) there are some people whom God is “just not that into.”Like a vivisectionist who raises animals purely for the purpose of experimenting on them; or the child who acquires or makes toys just to destroy them in ever more cruel ways.

If God is really like this, why bother living?Why hope to have a relationship with such a vile and shallow being?Not to mention violent and unjust.If “God” is simply the way we refer to the way the world is and the way people treat each other… is that supposed to give us comfort?

I admit that sometimes I have trouble believing God is not like this.Certainly humans are.Too often, it doesn’t matter what you do, many people are going to like you or not on the basis of some arbitrary and accidental categories.Like that commercial in which all kinds of incompetence and boorishness are forgiven because the man is wearing a nice suit. According to double predestination, God gives some of us the nice suit and some of us an orange jump-suit, and that’s that.God loved David and hated Saul, even though both were sinners and David’s sin was arguably the worse.Some people seem to get what they need just by showing up.Others invest a lifetime in good deeds and selfless sacrifice and still don’t get what they need, if what they need depends at all on other people.God sees the heart, which is apparently where one’s preordained suit is.

If this is true I have wasted my adult life in service of such a god.

Fortunately, it is not true.The great insight of Neo-orthodoxy is that “Jesus Christ, as he is attested in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God.”(Theological Declaration of Barmen, II.1.)Therefore, Jesus Christ is the way we know who God is.Since double predestination is utterly foreign and contradictory to the God we see in Jesus Christ, it is a false doctrine.It doesn’t matter how many apparent biblical warrants can be stacked up in its favor (and there aren’t that many anyway), it is Jesus Christ who is the Word, and it is he who determines the meaning and content of Scripture. If we find something in Scripture that contradicts Jesus we are probably reading it wrong.

I write this because all Presbyterian ministers have to be examined when becoming a member of a presbytery.In that examination they are often asked if they have any “scruples,” or departures from the“standards” put forth in the Constitution, which includes the Westminster Confession of Faith.Most just happily shake their head that they are fine with everything in the Constitution, assuming that the subtext in the question has to do with whether they are willing to adhere to G-6.0106b (the prohibition against gays in leadership), like that’s the only really mandatory part of the Constitution.I am distressed that no one ever seems to have a problem with Book of Confessions, 6.016 (quoted as the epigraph above).

I sometimes wonder if it isn’t time to put aside whatever strange issues the Puritans were dealing with when they put this stuff on paper.It’s not the 1640’s anymore for crying out loud.This part of our heritage has been an embarrassment, practically since the ink with which it was written dried.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Here's something from Brad Culver's blog, "Living Water From an Ancient Well." It describes a way of evangelism quite different from what many of us are used to.

E.H. Broadbent describes the Work of early Celtic Monastic Communities :

Their method was to visit a country and, where it seemed suitable, found a missionary village. In the centre they built a simple wooden church, around which were clustered school-rooms and huts for the monks, who were the builders, preachers, and teachers. Outside this circle, as required, dwellings were built for the students and their families, who gradually gathered around them. The whole was enclosed by a wall, but the colony often spread beyond the original enclosure. Groups of twelve monks would go out, each under the leadership of an abbot, to open up fresh fields for the Gospel. Those who remained taught in the school, and as soon as they had sufficiently learned the language of the people among whom they were, translated and wrote out portions of Scripture, and also hymns, which they taught to their scholars.

They were free to marry or to remain single; many remained single so that they might have greater liberty for the work. When some converts were made, the missionaries chose from among them small groups of young men who had ability, trained them especially in some handicraft and in languages, and taught them the Bible and how to explain it to others, so that they might be able to work among their own people. They delayed baptism until those professing faith had received a certain amount of instruction and had given some proof of steadfastness.

They avoided attacking the religions of the people, counting it more profitable to preach the truth to them than to expose their errors. They accepted the Holy Scriptures as the source of faith and life and preached justification by faith. They did not take part in politics or appeal to the State for aid. All this work, in its origin and progress, though it had developed some features alien to New Testament teaching and Apostolic example, was independent of Rome and different in important respects from the Roman Catholic system (Cited by Tucker).